Question

Describe Boas approach to studying culture and how does he demonstrate that race is a cultural construction.

Answer 1

Boas was German born and earned a Ph.D in Physics but he was very much interested in anthropology. What interested him the most was the notion that European culture was superior. He thus set out to study the cultures of the tribes in Canada from where he was able find one of the greatest theories of sociology, cultural relativism which suggests that each culture is unique and in order to understand the good things in that culture, one needs to view that culture from that culture’s point of view. This theory also brought out the importance of the fact that race is a cultural construct and the white people wanted to prove the superiority of their culture by constructing the concept of race in the society.

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